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President Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) on February 17, 2009. The overall bill contains a mix of tax breaks and spending measures intended to preserve jobs, create new jobs, and stimulate economic activity. There are several provisions of the stimulus bill that directly impact speech-language pathology and audiology.
The new law contains over $25 billion in education funding targeted at Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act/No Child Left Behind (ESEA/NCLB) and Parts B & C of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
More specifically, H.R.1 provides:
- $13 billion for ESEA/NCLB - $10 billion for Title I formula grants and $3 billion for school improvements grants;
- $12.2 billion for IDEA - $11.3 billion for Part B grants to states, $400 million of Section 619 for 3–5 year olds, and $500 million for Part C infants and toddlers programs; and
- $53.6 billion - State Fiscal Stabilization Fund that requires Governors to use at least 83% ($40 billion) of its state allocation to support elementary, secondary, and higher education.
The first half of the funds will be made available immediately, with the second half released on July 1, 2010. The stabilization funds provided to school districts are intended to help mitigate the reduction in local revenues and state support to school districts. The conference agreement indicates that the Secretary of Education may waive or modify any requirement relating to maintenance of effort concerning the stabilization funds for states and school districts that have experienced a precipitous decline in financial resources.
The ARRA also contains a provision that will promote comparative effectiveness research and enhance the use of health information technology (HIT). Specifically, the new law provides $1.1 billion to be used to conduct research on clinical outcomes, effectiveness, risk and benefits of medical treatments and services and encourages the development and use of clinical registries, clinical data networks and other forms of electronic health data that can be used to generate or obtain outcomes data.
The ARRA accelerates the adoption and use of HIT by establishing the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) to support the development of HIT through the development of comprehensive federal standards.
For further information or questions about education funding provisions of the ARRA, please contact Neil Snyder at nsnyder@asha.org or 800-498-2071, ext. 5614. For information related to Health IT, please contact Ingrida Lusis at ilusis@asha.org or 800-498-2071, ext. 5610.
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